


The Peace of Abstinence

by Malvolia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:01:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28794339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malvolia/pseuds/Malvolia
Summary: Sherlock ponders why anyone would be obtuse enough to consider “virgin” an insult, and decides some topics derail rational thought. (Set just after “A Scandal in Belgravia” in series two.)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	The Peace of Abstinence

Unlike most of the pox-ridden masses of London, Sherlock was not embarrassed by virginity. He never felt the need, as had so many of his peers—using the word “peers” loosely—to have sex solely for the purpose of shaking the moniker of “virgin.” Part of him had rather naively hoped that the inane taunting would end after secondary school, but here he was, over a decade out of university, and Irene Adler’s repetition of Jim Moriarty’s slur caught him by surprise. Even though he didn’t understand why it was a slur at all.

He heard Donovan call him asexual once, and he didn’t bother correcting her, because it was none of her business. But why, in an era that praised doing just as you like, would abstinence be such a ludicrous choice? He didn’t understand it, any more than Donovan would understand him if he tried to explain himself to her.

As a student of crime, he had focused more on concrete details than on compiling a list of human motivations, but he knew that money and sex ranked at the top of that list, and were by far the most boring. Even magpies collected shiny objects. Even rabbits copulated. Neither act in itself was particularly noteworthy.

Besides, no matter what the fellows at university claimed, it was obvious that amongst humans, at any rate, there was no such thing as sex with no strings attached. Calling it experimentation was laughable—he knew experiments, and they meant going after results that could be repeated and documented and used to some effect. Sexual experimentation, as he noted from watching those most proud of theirs, did not seem to lend itself to clarity of mind, and _did_ seem to lead to messy relational entanglements.

When he told John he considered himself married to his work, he wasn’t feeding him a brush-off line. The work was everything, and relationships of any sort cluttered up the mind palace with irrelevant baubles of no real significance. They had no _meaning_.

John kept arguing that Sherlock’s ideas of significance and meaning were all mixed up, but then John was good at all of this relationship nonsense, and Sherlock…well, it wasn’t his area of expertise.

Unlike types of cigarette ash, or ciphers, or maps of London, people did not become any simpler the longer you spent time studying them. Quite the contrary, in fact. Molly Hooper, for instance, had been a scientist with an exploitable weakness for flattery, and now she was also a woman with a baffling weakness for him. And though he was fairly certain he had patched things over after that horribly awkward Christmas gift incident, he would not have been able to do it had he not been spending so much of the past few years with his particular flatmate.

Because John was good at all of the things Sherlock was…not an expert in. Sherlock could walk into their flat and see that the lino was looking grubby enough not to have been cleaned in days, but after hearing him comment as much, John would nip upstairs to ask after Mrs Hudson’s health. Sherlock didn’t understand why, if she’d thought it was relevant, Mrs Hudson hadn’t mentioned her health, or why she would want to be bothered if it wasn’t relevant, but somehow she always did seem to like John popping in to check on her.

None of which was the sort of thing that was likely to come under the heading of “information needed for tracking down a notorious criminal,” even though Sherlock quite liked Mrs Hudson, in his own way.

John said things like “please” and “thank you” and “I’m sorry” easily and freely, as if he didn’t have to try to remember to say them. He had patience with idiots and the mentally lazy. People wanted to be around him. They didn’t call him names or roll their eyes in frustration when he entered the room. He smiled at them and they smiled back, instead of casting wary looks at him to see what he might want. He didn’t want much.

Sherlock came to everybody with a list of things he wanted, when he came to them at all. Everybody, that is, except John. He supposed he wanted to be around John, too. He supposed that made him a friend. It was a curious notion, as he had never expected to have one. He’d rather thought they would interfere with the work, like lovers would, but he’d found that friendship—rather, this particular friendship—was more help than hindrance.

John was good at this relationship nonsense. He wouldn’t stay in this flat forever. He’d get himself married someday, most likely, and he might even be the sort who would—horrible thought—enjoy children. It was only a matter of time. Maybe Sherlock would be well-known enough by then to afford to stay on here at 221B alone, and maybe John would come by sometimes for tea or to sit in on a consult or to go on another adventure. Did wives come in the sort of mold to allow that? 

He wasn’t sure, but he was sure it wouldn’t be worth the mental energies to determine if such a woman existed. Not for his only friend, and certainly not for himself. The puzzle of who would want Sherlock Holmes for a husband was not one he had any interest in solving.

All there was left was to enjoy the freedom of mutual bachelorhood, for tonight and all the nights John had free before some mousy brunette claimed all his attention. Hang on—Molly! Why hadn’t he thought of it before? Molly would let John spend all the time he wanted with Sherlock, and there’d be no more worries about the next Moriarty who might enter her life and sweep her off her feet. If Molly married John, Sherlock would be able to keep them both.

The door to the flat swung open, and Sherlock immediately began to share his realisation.

“Would you be interested in…”

John paused, keys in one hand and a shopping bag in the other. 

Sherlock shook his head. He took the fact that he had begun the evening in contemplation of the peace and quiet of abstinence and nearly ended by playing matchmaker as proof of his original thesis. Nothing good could come out of those sorts of entanglements. Simply thinking of them was dangerous enough.

“In what?” his flatmate asked, after a long moment, because while he was the sort of person who was good at pleasantries, he didn’t always force them. 

“In a game of Cluedo,” Sherlock offered. “You’ve been asking me to play, and I’ve nothing better to waste my mind on tonight.”

“A thoroughly enthusiastic invitation,” John said acidly, but there was a spark in his eye. “All right. This should be fun.”

Sherlock moved to clear the kitchen table. 

Let no one say he was completely averse to _anything_ he hadn’t tried.


End file.
